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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27799855">December</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dydomio/pseuds/Dydomio'>Dydomio</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>College, Loneliness, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Winter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:42:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,886</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27799855</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dydomio/pseuds/Dydomio</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Heat O'Brien has had a long year, and winter recess is just around the corner. But for some reason, he can't find it in himself to be excited about it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Heat O'Brien/Serph Sheffield</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>December</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>HI SORRY LOTTA NOTES ON THIS ONE</p>
<p>- T rating is for moderate profanity and some emotional manipulation<br/>- Serph is a Nationally Certified Bastard here and pushes Heat's buttons pretty hard, so please be careful if you read!<br/>- I can't recall TC22 saying where Heat's home was (and couldn't find mention of it through skimming), so I threw the proverbial dart at a map and went with Boston</p>
<p>Being off my own campus this year has really made me miss that time of year just before winter break, so I wanted to write a bit about it from Heat's perspective!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Alright! Time.”</p>
<p>At the sound of his professor’s voice, Heat let his pencil fall gently out of his hand and leaned back as best he could in the stiff wooden chair, giving his sore muscles a much-needed stretch. All around him he could hear similar moves from his classmates – the clatter of pens set down on desks, the impatient shuffle of boots on the ancient timber floors, the sighs of relief or exhaustion or both from students who had just completed one final and probably still had more to go.</p>
<p>In Heat’s case, he was leaning rather more towards exhaustion. This exam had been his third of four, and though the freedom of winter recess was so tantalizingly close, he was running out of steam and <em>fast</em>. At surface level, it seemed nothing too intense – orgo, psych, stats, biology – and indeed, if this had been a normal year or if Heat had been a normal student, it might have been smooth sailing for him. But a tangle with the law earlier in the fall had disrupted his academics, no less his own mental well-being, more than he’d liked to admit; though his name had been cleared in the end, the stress had never really let up, and it was awful hard to focus on his studies when he could all he could imagine was the eye of the cops on him wherever he went. Since then he’d had to double his study efforts and double them again just to keep up with his peers – but he’d assured himself just as many times that it was well worth it. Berkeley College second-year Heat O’Brien was top of his class, and he’d be <em>damned</em> if he let that go.</p>
<p>He sure was starting to get worn out, though. He pressed his palms over his eyes and rubbed them wearily before running his hands over the sides of his face, combing through his thick blonde hair with his fingers. A bit too hard, perhaps; stars erupted in his vision like a galaxy being born before his very eyes.</p>
<p>“We’re all busy people here, so I won’t keep you,” his professor said, gazing up and around at the class from his desk at the front of the lecture hall. He was a stout, elderly man, one Heat often overheard his classmates joking had been teaching since the day the University was founded, and right now he was looking just as tired as any of them. “Just flip ‘em over and leave ‘em, I’ll come around once I get the room cleaned up. You know the drill – congratulations, grades by next week, safe travels, have a nice break. Now get out of my classroom,” he added, throwing in a shooing hand gesture as he began to shove books and papers into his travel case.</p>
<p>A ripple of weary laughter passed around the lecture hall; they didn’t need to be told twice to leave. Giving the sore spot in his lower back one last rub, Heat lifted himself out of his too-small desk and pulled his bag out from beneath the seat. It was like a sack of bricks most times of the year, but he was always pleased to see it get lighter and lighter as finals progressed. Whether he was pleased to see the finals <em>themselves</em> was another story. Quickly he stuck his pencil into a side pocket and flipped his exam over, then slung the bag over his shoulder and joined the trickle of students heading through the old dim halls and out into the wintry campus beyond.</p>
<p>It was a pleasant day, as far as this season was concerned, and a welcome respite from the rather ugly weather that had rolled in a few days prior. Though it had just recently been pelted by a white-out snowstorm, the campus was now wrapped up in a delicate wintry embrace; everywhere he looked, snow blanketed the ground, piled up on roofs, decorated bare trees like a glittering layer of frosting. The breeze was stiff – Heat had had to catch his breath after stepping outside - but not oppressive, and whenever it passed it whipped up the snowdrifts into dancing clouds of diamond dust. Deep scour marks in the curious ice and salt patchwork of the walkways betrayed the recent passage of plows; he could trace their tracks to a parking lot not far from the building, where a miniature mountain range of white and brown had begun to accumulate. And though it was scarce past 4 PM now, the sun was already sinking below the distant horizon, bathing the hazy sky in a gray-pink glow that was as eerie as it was beautiful.</p>
<p>It wasn’t yet dark enough to take any chances. UV intensity went down in the winter, that was true, but all the snow on the ground reflected and magnified it to the point it was just as strong as mid-summer; where he volunteered at pediatrics, he’d recently run into a string of concerned parents demanding to know how their children had gotten burns in the dead of winter. He picked up his ray-cutting sunglasses, hooked by one arm into the neck of his flannel shirt, and set them onto his face, feeling the cold edges of the lenses against his cheeks. The world around him darkened a few shades; carefully, with his eyes down and his hand firm on the railing, he descended the stairs leading out from the building and started on his way across campus.</p>
<p>He was quickly forming an action plan in his head, to distract him from the cold that was already sinking through his secondhand overcoat. He would head over to Cross Campus and duck into the library for a few hours, study up as best he could for that last exam he had tomorrow, then make his way to the dining hall and catch a quick meal before biking back to his apartment for some <em>much</em>-needed rest. He marched onward through the slush with the single-minded determination of a man who was freezing his ass off and knew there was a space heater with his name on it where he was headed.</p>
<p>There was always something surreal about this time of year, something lovely about the quiet winter dusk. Despite the massive size of the campus and the sheer number of University students and employees, Heat was one of only a couple pedestrians out and about right now; many had already begun to head home for the holidays, and those who hadn’t were no doubt hidden away somewhere warm, deep in work or study. There were few sounds now, in this place normally so full of life – just the winter wind blowing at his side, the crunch of salt beneath his boots, the rumble of a car or two so far in the distance. If he hadn’t seen the shadows of people moving about in the lit windows around him, brief flickers of black against the soft yellow-orange glow, he might have thought he was the last man on earth.</p>
<p>He was making good time now, passing under the grand low arch of the art gallery and coming up on the Old Campus. It would be just a few minutes to the library at his current clip; with the wind getting progressively stronger and the sun sinking even lower, he felt like he couldn’t get there fast enough. Then, as he came down from a big step around an icy puddle on the walkway, he felt a snap at his shoulder – the strap of his bag breaking. Instantly he whipped around and grabbed it by its hanging hook, breathlessly thanking his years of boxing training for the sharp reflexes that had probably just saved his laptop from a watery grave. Muttering a few choice curses, he carefully pulled the bag towards him, then ducked behind a tree to keep out of the wind as he surveyed the damage.</p>
<p>Truth be told, this wasn’t the first time it had happened, and until he was of the mind to replace the damn thing it probably wouldn’t be the last. The series of ragged stitches he’d put in himself after the last one or two times it’d broken had torn right through; split-ended threads hung from the body of the bag and the severed strap like the teeth of a needlework beast. If he passed the strap through the hanger and tied it back on itself, he could at least give himself <em>something</em> to hang over his shoulder, lopsided and silly as it would be. It was a hasty fix he’d performed many times before, but in the cold his stiff gloved fingers struggled with it. And after one too many failed attempts to fold the end of the strap and poke it through the hanger, he gave it up and let the mangled bag drop unceremoniously to his side, looking up at the sky above the Old Campus with a groan.</p>
<p>It was getting to be that special kind of winter dark, where the pale gray sky was aglow with diffuse moonlight and speckled with the stars of far-off city lights. It was haunting and magical in equal measure, and as Heat stared off into the night above Farnam and Lawrance, he found his frustration washing away. In its place, a peculiar feeling of longing began to pool in.</p>
<p>Normally Heat loved this time of year. Fewer people meant shorter lines at the dining hall, less traffic around campus, less anything to get in his way as he went about his business wherever it took him. And of course, the reassurance that in just a few weeks’ time, he would be done with his classes and have a nice month at home where he could at least pretend to have a bullshit-free existence. He would see his mother again, see how proudly she would smile at him when he told her how the year had gone – maybe this time he would leave out the part where he’d been arrested on suspicion of murder. It was something that made him happy, and these days such things were few and far between.</p>
<p>But this year something was bothering him. Something he couldn’t put his finger on, and that irritated him more than anything; something that made a strange wistfulness billow up in his heart and made a lump form in his throat whenever he so much as thought about the end of the semester. About the campus, how dark and quiet and empty it was, and about how cozy he would be at home, curled up in bed with something nice to read, a weighted blanket above him and the warm wind of a heater at his back. Alone.</p>
<p>Something about the grim-beautiful winter scene before him had stirred up those feelings tenfold. Perhaps it was seeing how few lights remained in the residential buildings; how he was at that moment the only soul on the biggest open campus at the University, how the wind swirled up snowflakes like the sands of a wasteland. It was inexplicable, irrational, but in that moment he felt as empty as the courtyard before him.</p>
<p>And he’d gotten so swept up in his thoughts that he hadn’t noticed someone stride up towards him from the sidewalk.</p>
<p>“My, my, O’Brien, just <em>what</em> is so interesting over there?”</p>
<p>The voice was familiar, but Heat jumped a little nonetheless. He turned to his left and there saw none other than Serph Sheffield, leaning over comedically far in the direction Heat had been looking. A gesture of mocking, no doubt, but it was making him look just as silly as Heat probably had been. Something in his chest faintly tightened.</p>
<p>“Sheffield,” he said. “…How long have you been there?”</p>
<p>“Oh, just long enough to worry if those neurons of yours were still firing,” Serph replied with an impish smile, marching over to the spot directly in front of Heat and flicking him squarely on the forehead. It was one of those <em>power play</em> techniques he so loved, and one of many he’d tried to teach Heat, though Heat had rejected him time and time again on the principle that he was here to learn genetics, not scumbaggery. Stand close to your target, too close, block out any distractions, put them off guard. Make them look at you. <em>Only</em> you.</p>
<p>And though Heat loathed to give him any praise for it, it was working. All he could focus on now was his… obligate best friend, Serph, wrapped up in a rather ritzy winter coat that made him look even tinier than usual. The chill had built up a deep red glow in his cheeks, and his intelligent gray-black eyes peered up at Heat from behind sharp rimless sunglasses. He knew he should’ve been pissed at Serph for hitting him, but looking over that eerily seraphic face, he just couldn’t muster the outrage. At this point, he was too tired to, anyway.</p>
<p>Heat sighed, lifting his broken bag a few inches off the ground and dropping it again so Serph could see. “Yeah, I’m still kicking,” he said, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “For better or for worse, I suppose.”</p>
<p>“Dear, dear,” Serph said, tapping the corner of his mouth with his finger and casting a mock-pitying look at Heat. “Finals not going so well, Mr. Valedictorian?”</p>
<p>Again Heat let the insult roll off of him. “Could be worse,” he replied, shrugging noncommittally. “Just one more tomorrow, and… well, home free,” he said, trying to inject some enthusiasm into his words that ultimately spilled out as pitiful. Recess was just around the corner, but something – he hated that, not being able to give it a name, <em>something</em> – was making him more upset about it than anything.</p>
<p>“Mmm, I seeeee. That must be <em>exciting</em> for you, O’Brien! You’ve had quite a busy semester this fall, in any case,” Serph teased, as if most of that wasn’t his own damn fault. He’d no doubt picked up on the hesitation in Heat’s voice, for his deep eyes had begun to darken in calculation. There could be no hiding your thoughts when Serph Sheffield was around; Heat had learned that much in the short few months they’d known each other. He felt as though he had a hunter’s knife pressed to his neck. “I take it you’ll be heading back home to your mother’s? Boston, was it?”</p>
<p>Heat nodded, then cast his eyes down to the snow-covered ground, a wistful smile spreading across his face. “Yeah. I’ll bet my ma misses me something fierce,” he said – and it was true. He’d always been a bit of a mama’s boy, especially towards the end of his childhood; the happiness he could see on her face whenever he came home on break had no equal. He was… the only child left, after all.</p>
<p>After a moment’s hesitation, he returned Serph’s question. “…You going back to your folks too?” He felt stupid asking it; of course he would, he would scuttle back to whatever penthouse or mansion his big-shot parents had back in Portland, and he’d spend that winter in luxury, without a care for the world or anyone else that lived in it. He began to kick absentmindedly at the snowdrift in front of him, waiting for Serph to snap back at him like he always did. But maybe, just maybe, he wished that this time the answer would be different.</p>
<p>“Indeed,” he replied neutrally. “I’ve registered for a few online psychology classes, you know, to get a jump on next year. It’ll be a lot of work, no doubt, but time waits for no one, as they say – I’ve got this fellow named Heat O’Brien to catch up to, after all.” By choice, Heat couldn’t see his face, but he could picture the smarmy smile clear as day. It was quite like Serph to do something like that, and if Heat hadn’t been so swamped with school and life these past months he might have done the same. Serph never stopped thirsting for knowledge, never stopped striving for perfection. He would be… busy this winter.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t have expected any different,” Heat lied through his teeth. “Well, you have fun with your books and conferences, buddy. Me, I’m getting under the covers and never coming out.”</p>
<p>“Ah, spending the break in hibernation, are you?” Serph chuckled, and Heat felt his chest tighten again. “I can’t say I blame you. This season being as rough as it is, a bit of rest and relaxation ought to be lovely.”</p>
<p>“It will be.”</p>
<p>“Then why do you sound so <em>sad</em> about it?” Serph asked. Gotcha.</p>
<p>Heat suddenly stopped kicking at the snow. He’d been expecting the question, to an extent, but it had caught him off guard nonetheless; he struggled for a response, afraid to speak up too quickly or to take too long to think. Serph would know. He always did. “I… Heh. You know, how crazy this year’s been, it’s almost hard to say goodbye to it,” he finally said. He couldn’t give Serph a straight answer, but he wasn’t sure he had one in the first place.</p>
<p>“Crazy’s become your new normal, has it? I suppose I can understand that too,” Serph replied. Heat busied himself again with the little dent he’d made in the snow. “Forced to say farewell to the very things that now define your life… It must be quite difficult.”</p>
<p>Heat just gave him a gentle nod, taking care not to catch his eye.</p>
<p>“What do you think you’ll miss the most? The mystery, the sleepless nights?” A pause, brutally long. “…The people?”</p>
<p>“Psh,” Heat spat out. Too loud, too soon. Serph had led him right into one of his traps, one he’d seen coming a mile away but couldn’t, didn’t <em>want</em> to keep away from. He was in it now, though, and like hell he wasn’t going to struggle. “Nice try, Sheffield. I know what you want me to say, and you’re not gonna get it. If anything I should be <em>glad</em> I don’t have to put up with your shit for another month.” The words tumbled out almost automatically, a knee-jerk reaction Serph had practically built into him through his incessant teasing. He wasn’t sure if he meant them.</p>
<p>Serph went silent; the only sound now was the howl of the wind and the irregular tapping of Heat’s boot against the ground. For a moment he wondered if he’d been too harsh, if somehow he’d actually hurt Serph’s <em>feelings</em> with a jab he thought no worse than what they usually exchanged. But before he could look up to see, Serph crossed the distance between them, stepped on his foot <em>hard</em>, and shoved his body against Heat’s, his chin pressing into the middle of Heat’s chest. Heat jerked his head back in surprise, only to bash it against the trunk of the tree behind him. Too close. <em>Way</em> too close. “Sheffield, what the h-“</p>
<p>“Come now, O’Brien,” Serph said, staring up at Heat through narrowed eyes, his voice low and threatening. “That coy act is so <em>very</em> unbecoming of you.”</p>
<p>It wouldn’t take much effort at all to punt Serph into the snow, and the thought had <em>definitely</em> flashed through Heat’s mind, but for some reason he was frozen to the spot. That was one thing he’d always hated about Serph, that vile charm he worked on everyone, the one that never failed, much as he struggled against it, to ensnare Heat too. One look at him, his heavy gray eyes with infinite depth, his self-satisfied, all-knowing grin – it was enough to derail any train of thought he might have, leave him fumbling for his words like an idiot. He <em>despised</em> it. Didn’t he?</p>
<p>“I- I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he sputtered, turning his head far to the side so he didn’t have to look into those awful, awful eyes. It was freezing out, getting colder by the minute, but he could only feel his face getting hotter. “Now get the hell off of me before I put you in the dirt and tell the grounds crew Old Campus needs a plow.”</p>
<p>“A plow, eh?” Serph said. In the corner of his eye Heat could see a smirk tugging at one side of his mouth. “You know, in psychology, there’s something we call a-“</p>
<p>“Seriously. I don’t have time for this bullshit. I mean it,” he said, cutting Serph off before he could say something Heat <em>knew</em> he wouldn’t like. He was starting to feel the pressure now; for someone who looked like a good breeze would tip him over, Serph sure had a lot of weight to him. Too much.</p>
<p>“Very well, then,” Serph replied, his face softening in amusement. Heat couldn’t bear to look at him. “Since you’re so adamant about it, I suppose I can let you go. …On one condition.”</p>
<p>“This is <em>stupid</em>,” Heat hissed.</p>
<p>“You said you knew what I wanted you to say, didn’t you?”</p>
<p>“Sheffield-“</p>
<p>“I want to hear it.”</p>
<p>“I-“ Heat was ready to protest again, but this time the words had caught in his throat. He didn’t want to give Serph the satisfaction, to let him win, but there again was that inscrutable <em>something</em>, squeezing on his heart like a vise. Though his dignity was screaming at him, deep inside he knew he wanted to say it. Needed to. Not for Serph, but for himself, to finally put a name to the disturbance in his psyche.</p>
<p>“I’m gonna miss you,” he said finally, closing his eyes softly as if it would absolve him of the shame. “Serph.”</p>
<p>And like that the crushing weight in his chest lifted.</p>
<p>The weight on the rest of him lifted, too, as Serph stepped away from him and back to where he’d been standing, a smug grin plastered on his face. “See?” he said, his expression unreadable; if his mood had changed at all, Heat couldn’t tell. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”</p>
<p>Heat took a moment to choose his words carefully. “Go fuck yourself.” His mind was prickling with frustration – sometimes he really did hate Sheffield, hated that he could get anything he wanted from him just like that, hated that he seemed to know Heat better than he knew himself. He felt… better now, now that the feelings he didn’t know he’d had were out in the open. But in their place had come irritation, and <em>boy</em> was there a lot of it.</p>
<p>“Awww,” Serph said, his voice dripping with malicious sweetness. “I’ll miss you too, O’Brien.”</p>
<p>He didn’t mean it – he couldn’t – but Heat’s heart twinged anyway.</p>
<p>Heat let out a long, frustrated sigh, releasing a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. His cheeks were still burning, though from windburn or embarrassment he couldn’t tell. “Alright, jackass, you got what you wanted. Now what the hell was the point of all that, huh? Did you just wanna piss me off one last time before you went home?”</p>
<p>“Well, you do make <em>such</em> a funny face when you’re mad,” Serph said, tilting his head to one side. “Of course I’d like to have it fresh in my mind.” Seeing Heat start to prickle at him again, he quickly picked up, “but no. You see, I’d love to go home for break, but I’ve just recalled that I’ve also registered for some clinical training that will require me to stay in the greater Boston area this winter. Under the guidance of a medical student at this same university, no less.”</p>
<p>Heat blinked. It took him a moment to register what Serph had said and another to process what he’d actually meant, but once it had crystallized he found his heart starting to skip beats. “Sheffield, I can’t just – bring – you…” he trailed off, embarrassment choking him up again.</p>
<p>“Of course, of course, you’re right,” Serph said, raising one hand to his cheek and leaning his head against it. “Now that I think about it, the medical student did end up having to find alternative accommodations. It seems I will now be forced to stay by myself at the nicest hotel in Boston, though the student and I will still be at most a thirty-minute drive from each other on the off hours.” He let out a playful sigh, shaking his head in mock despair. “Such a terrible shame, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>Heat didn’t know what to say. He tried to form a response and found his mouth had gone dry. He wasn’t sure what it was, another unknown emotion welling up inside him, one that felt so full and bright compared to the great empty longing from earlier. Damn that Sheffield to hell; he’d been furious a second ago and now he couldn’t stop smiling. “Sure is,” he replied softly.</p>
<p>“Now then,” Serph said, clapping his gloved hands together. “While I would <em>love</em> to stay here and chat, I have places to be, and I’m sure you do too, my frostbitten friend.” He walked over to Heat’s side and picked up his broken bag, holding it in the crook of one arm as he folded the end of the strap over, passed it through the hanger, and tied it back on itself - that same way Heat had done it so many times before. He tugged on it once to make sure it was taut, then dropped it abruptly into Heat’s arms. “That ought to do it. Maybe you should think about getting yourself a new one this Christmas, hmm?”</p>
<p>“Right,” Heat said, briefly admiring Serph’s handiwork before slinging the bag back over his shoulder. It sat rather awkwardly in his armpit, as usual, but he felt a sort of sturdiness in the makeshift strap that he’d never been able to achieve himself. “Thanks.”</p>
<p>“Don’t mention it,” Serph replied, flashing him a warm smile that Heat might have mistaken for genuine if he didn’t know any better. “I’ve got work tomorrow, and further testing the day after, so… I’ll contact you this Friday with more information, then?”</p>
<p>Heat nodded, returning the gesture. “…I’ll be waiting.”</p>
<p>“Good,” Serph said, a flicker of… something lighting up his eyes. Just one more of the things Heat had learned not to think too hard about. “Best of luck on your exams, then. I expect nothing less than the best from you, alright?”</p>
<p>If that had been anyone else, Heat would’ve been pissed – a student younger than him, speaking to him as if he was beneath them? Coming from Serph, though, he knew it was probably the closest thing he would ever get to a compliment. “Yeah, yeah, I got it. Same to you, Sheffield.”</p>
<p>With a last approving nod, Serph hoisted his own bag firmly onto his shoulders and began walking off in the direction Heat had come. Heat watched his retreating back for a while, laughing silently to himself as he saw the gargantuan steps Serph had to take to pick his way through the snow. Just as he’d made it back onto the sidewalk, Serph suddenly spun back around. “Oh, and – do take care not to catch cold, okay? The <em>real</em> shame would be if you came down with something and had to spend all break in bed with your mother feeding you chicken soup.” He turned around again, waving dismissively with his left hand, and began to walk away once more. “Hint, hint, O’Brien!” he called over his shoulder.</p>
<p>Heat sighed, a deep sigh of irritation and exhaustion and too many other things to count, and watched the cold air turn his breath into a billowing cloud of frost. Invariably, every encounter with Serph left him like that; annoyed above all, tired and confused in equal measure, and perhaps just a little bit lonely, wondering when would be the next time Serph came around and spiked his blood pressure into the stratosphere. But for now, it seemed, he wouldn’t have to worry about that any more. They would spend their winter break… <em>together</em>, or as together as they reasonably could be, given the circumstances. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind it was something he’d soon come to regret, but for this brief moment in time, just thinking about it made him… happy. Happy, when so few things nowadays could.</p>
<p>A strong breeze blew through the courtyard, whipping around buildings and driving the pristine snow up in flurries. Heat pulled the tall collar of his jacket closer to his face; he’d momentarily forgotten the cold, but it was rapidly sinking in again, and he realized Serph had been very serious about his warning. The library was waiting for him just a few minutes’ walk away, and so too was a nice warm carrel with a space heater parked next to it. As he trudged through the snow back to the walkway, he cast one last glance back up at the Old Campus buildings, grand, imposing structures gathered in formation around the courtyard. Each one of them had a clear view of the grounds below and a good distance each way down High Street. It must be incredible, he thought, all the things you could see from up there.</p>
<p>And he found himself hoping very desperately that no one had been looking out their window tonight.</p>
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